


All Signs Point to It

by Belle_Evans



Category: Takers (2010)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6193654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle_Evans/pseuds/Belle_Evans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-movie, John managed to escape being shot, doesn't mean he's not bleeding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Signs Point to It

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2011 for the Small Fandom Fest. The prompt was bleeding. Biting the bullet and moving more older fics from LJ. 
> 
> It's probably a form of procrastination as I have a bazillion new works in progress that need getting done.

This must be what it feels like John Rahway thinks as he downs the single malt, and motions the bartender to hit him again. To the casual observer he would appear to be any businessman tossing back a few after the same old shit at the office. The casual observer would be wrong. Rahway wasn't sloppy with his tactics. And he's not sloppy in this. He doesn't spend a lot of time in any of the upscale watering holes he hits. A couple drinks per bar maybe. Though his mood is more suited for a dive, he's had a lot of practice at being unreadable, at holding his own. Those two things are more than handy now. Another hit of the dark amber, then he's on to the next bar. They never cut him off because they've only served the handsome guy, in the good suit, a couple of drinks. 

Their banker, Scott, was truly top notch. Rahway raises his nearly empty glass to the dead man. Neither LAPD nor the Feds have been able to trace any of the money from their previous jobs. They won't, which is a mixed blessing. John is still well financed which makes it easier to lay low. To be comfortable for whatever that's worth. Currently, it's worth all the Ardbeg he can drink.

He hasn't been back to his place since that night. He and Gordon were careful about not keeping anything directly identifying the other at either of their places. Gordon's car keys weigh heavy in the pocket of John's suit jacket. He knows there are a couple of his ties mixed in with Gordon's, maybe some socks, a few pairs of boxer briefs. 

There were pictures, in Gordon's safe, from the first morning after a revelatory night in a Riverside motel. Those are now forever gone. A.J. and Jake had rigged the safes at their homes and the club to blow upon unauthorized access.

There could have been some joy in the unpleasant surprise it probably was for the LAPD were it not for the fact that right now, John would put a bullet in someone to get those pictures back. It never occurred to him in all the time he'd known Gordon, he could end up without him, without himself. He will never be able to approximate the man in those photos again. 

The bartender interrupts his train of thought as he places the fresh drink in front of him. He nods, smiles. No worries here. 

 

They may find his prints, more than likely a few strands of his hair on the sheets, on the pillow. The maid service he'd hired for Gordon's place was both discrete, thorough, but he'd spent the night before the job at Gordon's. He's still got good cover though for whatever that's worth now. The identity attached to those prints died in a fire years ago. 

The things left behind at Gordon's, the clues to his identity, won't be detected by forensics. They're twined in the give and take of the brainstorming sessions that slid into late dinners that Gordon alchemied in his sleek kitchen. Meals he let John taste every step of the way, and tweaked on his suggestions, the way he did with jobs. Gordon told him he'd learned to cook out of necessity when he was a kid. But those nights, John could never detect anything of a chore in it. Only a kind of joy reflected by Gordon and absorbed by John. For dessert, he peeled Gordon out of the rest of his suit piece by piece. 

John's hand tremors at the memory of dark skin, unmarred skin easy beneath his hands. He flinches as the image of puckering, fatal wounds overlay those memories. Liquid sloshes over the edge of his glass onto his hand. With a quick glance at the preoccupied bartender, John licks the back of his hand then takes a good gulp. Squeezing his eyes closed, he concentrates on the burn, on remaining on course. On ignoring his own puckering wound.

His thoughts drift to Naomi. Naomi. Even if law enforcement finds her, she can't give them anything. She's mostly out of her mind now. The clinic in Las Vegas is off the radar, haven for the very wealthy with issues. Naomi definitely has issues to spare. John has greased enough palms to insure her discrete, ongoing care. The cash in hand a serious trump of the all points bulletin. Should he disappear from the face of the earth, Naomi's needs will be met. 

John hadn't stopped driving that night until they hit the desert. He had no way to gauge exactly how bad their exposure was. The Russians didn't play games, neither did the cops with dead officers in play. John was outgunned, out-manned. And Gordon -

In the Mojave, he'd considered putting a bullet in Naomi's head. Bottoming out adrenaline, and the sudden inability to remember how many bullets were in his clip stopped him. Now he knows exactly how many bullets. He carries one gun, holstered at the small of his back, disguised by the cut of his suit. One bullet in the chamber. He never leaves home without it. 

There were days he once had. More days he will never get back.

**& &&&&**  


__  
**Seven years prior**  


Juggling a Trader Joe's bag with his keys, car thief John Rahway put the key in the lock of the Riverside no tell motel room he rented by the week. As the key slid home, he heard a slide retract behind him, felt the smooth warmth of a muzzle at the base of his skull.

A gloved hand slid over his, and finished unlocking the door. Another hand shoved him hard enough to make him lose his grip on the bag and stumble. He fell into a a sprawl in the middle of the room. Two assailants, he realized as he watched the Trader Joe's bag smash into the dresser and shatter his bottle of two buck chuck. 

Scrambling to his feet as fast he could, John found himself face to face with a short, slim, pencil headed black guy. A toothpick jutted out of the guy's mouth, smirk firmly in place. The Glock he pointed at John's head was unwavering. 

"What's your story, mate?" It took John a moment to refocus, to look at the taller, darker of the two men. The one who wasn't holding a gun on him or sneering. The one with the unexpected accent. That guy was wearing linen, white linen. From head to toe. The contrast was a bit disorienting, stunning. _Not_ what he was expecting. Tearing his eyes away, he flicked his gaze to the shorter man. Looking past the gun, he took in tailored navy slacks, complemented by a cotton sweater in the same rich tone. It dawned on Rahway he wasn't being jacked by gang bangers. These guys had a different vibe, completely. It might be something he could work with. He quirked his eyebrow at White Linen. 

"One of you assholes owes me a bottle of wine." 

Grinning a perfect smile, White Linen stepped forward.

"You should stick to boosting sports cars. You owe Ghost here a new ride."

Ah, John had known the gas guzzling beauty was out of his weight class. A money green '80 Coupe de Ville, matching interior and ridiculous fins. But he hadn't been able to resist. From a professional standpoint, there was nothing he could do with that kind of ride. But, he'd wanted so he took. 

"Your boy stops pointing that gun at me, I might have a line on his ride."

"You don't get to dictate terms dog." The little one, so much annoying attitude. John felt a a kind of satisfaction it was his ride he'd boosted and not the other guy's.

"Put the gun away Ghost," White Linen laughed.

'Ghost' flinched toward John before engaging the safety, and slipping the gun into his waistband. 

"You have balls. I hear you're good at what you do. If you had a crew there's no way we could have rolled up on you like we did."

John didn't bother pointing out that he hardly needed a crew to boost some accountant's car from the mall. _He_ especially didn't, and he suspected White Linen knew that. 

 

They piled into John's truck, White Linen at shotgun. He drove them to a small warehouse he owned in Norco. 'Ghost' grumbled the whole way from behind the driver's seat about them being in the middle of nowhere. In the passenger seat, White Linen didn't say much of anything. Not until they got to the warehouse, and 'Ghost' pronounced his ride unscathed.

"Lucky for you asshole," 'Ghost' sneered as he slid behind the steering wheel.

"Catch you back at the spot," he nodded to his partner before taking off.

That left John alone with the other man. At least the odds were even. The gun was in the Coupe, and physically they were fairly evenly matched. In several long strides, the man inspected the warehouse. Hiding place for other things Rahway had simply taken. 

"This your life plan, is it mate?" 

"You got a better offer?"

"I'll buy you another bottle of wine. A good one. We'll discuss it."

**& &&&&**

John Rahway presses the cold glass of his mostly depleted drink to his forehead. He'd like to say that it had nothing to do with the accent. That he isn't that easy. He can't say that he's entirely immune. Was entirely immune. **Was**. Maybe that night it was just the surprise of all that Gordon, who'd whispered his name in John's ear right before pinning him to the scratchy motel sheets, wasn't that did it. Maybe he'd just been ready for a change.

For half of a half second, he'd considered maybe, after some time, he might start a new crew. As long as he wasn't made, business was business. He had the seed money. But what Ghost called his higher conscious, John thinks, as he dips his index finger into his glass, swiping the remnant, to suck down the very last bit, it might simply have been self-delusion. All signs pointed to it. 

He'd told Gordon that if he'd had family he would be with them. Since his recruitment seven years ago, John had spent most of his time in Gordon's company. In some form of contact with him. In between jobs, John went months without seeing either A.J. or Jake, but not Gordon. There was the sex, but that had been kind of sporadic in the first year. It had only picked up in the last six years or so with Ghost gone. 

That time included listening to Gordon vent about Naomi's drug addiction, seeing which one of them could cheat the most creatively at eighteen holes at Griffith Park and sometimes going to the club together to listen to A.J. play. He'd been a lone wolf in Riverside. 

 

With crew, when things went to hell, you cut your losses. Arranging to have the Attica's claimed so they could be buried properly, a makeshift funeral in the desert was about family. He should have taken the money and run anywhere. There was nothing left for him in L.A., except this. As many varieties of single malt scotch as there were bars in town, with as many bottoms of glasses he could drink his way to. 

 

It can't go on indefinitely, this ebb, this bleeding out. Just like Gordon on the front seat of the Range Rover, eventually it has to stop. John pushes himself up from his stool. There's a headrush, a slight buckle to his knees. He's pretty sure he kept accurate count of his drinks, but this is not the night's first bar. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. His tie, the one he bought at one of the Caesar Palace shops on the way out of Vegas, is crooked. It's only as he tightens the knot, it dawns on John that it's the same tie Gordon was wearing at the Roosevelt. Silk. Chocolate. 

"Another drink sir?"

John's fingers twitch against the familiar fabric. He wavers for just a moment before taking his stool again. 

"Yeah, make it a double."


End file.
